Arizona firefighter’s widow denied benefits over city’s ‘seasonal employee’ claim
The widow of one of the 19 Arizona firefighters killed battling a wildfire on June 30 is being denied salary and health benefits due to her despite her husband being a full-time employee, CBS News reported on Monday.
“I said to them, ‘My husband was a full-time employee. He went to work full-time for you,'” Juliann Ashcraft told CBS. “And what their response to me was, ‘Perhaps there was a communication issue in your marriage.'”
Ashcraft’s husband, Andrew Ashcraft, was part of the “hotshot” crew based out of Prescott, Arizona, that was consumed by a fire fueled by severe wind changes.
City officials contend that Andrew Ashcraft and 12 other members of the team were employed on a seasonal basis, which disqualifies them from the benefits for bereaved families of full-time city employees. The families of all 19 victims will get a one-time federal payment of $328,000 and worker’s compensation.
But CBS reported that Andrew Ashcraft was employed on a full-time basis, and officials with local union group United Yavapai Firefighters told CBS that he was the only one working 40 hours a week on a year-round basis among the firefighters currently denied full-time benefits.
“The city has fully complied with all of the laws and employment policies that direct survivor benefits,” city officials told CBS in a statement.
Watch CBS’ report on Juliann Ashcraft’s fight for benefits, aired Monday, below.
2020 Election
CNN panel lights up Trump over ‘the greatest hypocrisy’ of his presidency
President Donald Trump received harsh criticism on Saturday for golfing while continuing to push conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
"In Wisconsin, President-elect Joe Biden has just picked up more votes in the state's recount. Remember, this is a recount that was requested by President Trump's campaign in its failing attempt to overturn the election results," CNN's Boris Sanchez reported. "The final count gave Biden a more than 180,000 vote edge over his rival in Milwaukee County and certified his victory."
"By the way, the recount cost millions of dollars, so the Trump team spent millions to lose even harder," he added.
CNN
CNN legal analyst laughs off Trump’s desire to get before the Supreme Court after a series of ‘humiliating’ court losses
On CNN Saturday, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig assessed the mounting failures in President Donald Trump's legal efforts to challenge the result of the 2020 election.
"I'm laughing because they keep trying, and the results this week somehow went from horrible to somehow even worse," said Honig. "The big case now is ... Rudy Giuliani's effort to overturn Pennsylvania. Last week, a federal district court judge firmly rejected the case. He said there's zero evidence. He called the case, a quote, 'Frankenstein's monster haphazardly stitched together' and that's gotta sting, and yesterday a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals decisively and harshly rejected the case as well. And the thing is, President Trump's lawyers tried to attack the first judge, saying, well, he's an Obama nominee. Well, guess what? The three judges yesterday who unanimously rejected it were appointed by President George W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald J. Trump."
2020 Election
Judges are ‘fed up’ with Trump’s voter fraud claims as his lawyers get ‘themselves into hot water’: Ex-prosecutor
On CNN Saturday, following Donald Trump's Pennsylvania election suit being dismissed in a scathing opinion by a federal judge he had appointed, former federal prosecutor Shan Wu broke down the significance of the latest developments.
"I think this judge was just the latest in a series of judges fed up with the Trump team's weak arguments," said Wu. "I said in a piece back on November 8th on CNN that it was time for the Trump legal team to put up or shut up, and they haven't done either. I mean, judge after judge has rebuked them for not having any actual evidence. Even their claims are inconsistent. You hear the president publicly, Rudy Giuliani, the so-called mastermind, talking about fraud, and yet also Giuliani publicly has said this is not a fraud case. So they're all over the board."
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